~ words I'm exhaling

Malaysian Flight 370

The mysterious musings of what has happened to Malaysian Flight 370 has now consumed international aviation communities and governmental agencies. Together the people involved in all those combined have pooled their knowledge and experience to help find the missing aircraft. So far nothing concrete has surfaced anywhere, neither in ideas nor any signs of the plane.

Since Daughter #2 and her family live in Kuala Lumpur, this news story has kept my attention. They fly in and out of the same airport without a thought of something untoward happening. I’ve flown there and back home through the same airport twice myself. Thinking the planes they’ve traveled on would disappear as if in a dark magic act, or thinking anything beyond a routine flight seems almost unimaginable. It’s the same way any of us would think of any flight originating here in the USA.

On behalf of the passengers and their families, I hope there will soon be closure, that the agencies involved will come to an agreed upon conclusion, one that (although the bitterest of pills to swallow) will allow those waiting to have a chance to get past that moment of learning what we all most dread to hear, to take the next step – one before the other – and begin the long process back to normalcy, if it is ever to be reached.

These tragic moments know no point of origin, nor how many nationalities were represented on board, nor if they were all good, all bad, or somewhere in between. These results do not depend on what was eaten for breakfast or dinner, who was angry at whom, who was flying toward love or away from hate. We are all susceptible to being passengers on a plane such as Malaysian Flight 370. Therein lies the fear, the mystery. We want the answer to be inexplicable, something that could never happen to us.

We love our comfort, our fantasies. These are the very things that keep us going, make it possible to get up tomorrow, and – one day – board the next plane. Thoughts and prayers to all those touched in a personal way by that flight. God Bless.